Читать книгу The Mist and the Lightning. Part 19 онлайн

“Don’t you ever do that! Don’t you dare spit like a beast!” Kors yells at him.

Nik shrinks and tries to shield his lips with his palms, but doesn’t resist and remains silent. He doesn’t look at Kors, doesn’t raise his eyes, although his face expresses obvious displeasure. And Nik never spit on the ground or to the side in front of his father again.

They stood by the picturesque lake for three days, and Kors no longer remembers for what fault he makes Nik climb under their camp bed. He tells him that as punishment, Nik will lie there for exactly an hour, and lowers down a heavy cover of skins. Nik obediently and quietly lies on the floor, but Kors himself becomes very bored without him, and he barely maintains the allotted time. Barely waiting for the hour to finally pass, he abruptly lifts the covers, revealing his sweet boy. Nik lies face down on the floor, his face buried in his folded hands. He slightly raises his head, and, squinting from the light, tries to look at his father, and he frantically pulls him out and pulls him towards him, while hastily unzipping his fly with his other hand, and presses on the back of his head, pressing his face to his crotch.

Why is he recalling this now? It’s all over and there’ll be nothing more. But thoughts of Nik stubbornly spin in his head, endlessly playing the same melody, a song about lost love. Just like a hurdy-gurdy! Nik was right about it!

The same. One and the same, and so on in a circle. Ding. Ding. Ding…

Ding. Ding. Ding.

“Their room in the Fort. Nik sits on the bed and Kors moves his finger up, down, left, right. This way he restores his son’s vision and trains his eyes. Nik tries to follow his hand. Kors slowly brings his finger to the tip of his nose.

“Look!” He orders. “Look with both eyes at my finger!”

And Nik obediently shifts his eyes to the bridge of his nose, into a bunch, and it’s so funny and amusing that Kors, unable to restrain himself, begins to laugh. He shakes his head, pressing his hands to his chest and bursting into laughter, and Nik sits in front of him, shrinking, and, as usual, out of frustration, he sticks out his already plump lower lip a little forward, with his expression, provoking a new fit of fun and laughter in Kors. Nik looks at him reproachfully and with some resentment that Kors is making fun of him so openly.